All posts filed under: Recipes

When I remember my first time au pairing, I think mostly of doughnuts. They were called bombe, and I was obsessed. For two months I ate one every single day. I’d wait impatiently for their delivery to the beach bar, then savour them while they were still warm and oozing sweet creme patisserie. After finding myself stranded in a half-forgotten coastal resort in between Naples and Rome, these hot doughnuts were both freedom and pleasure. In Venice I’ve found my own version of bombe – frittelle. They arrived in the cafes and bakeries here at the beginning of January and will stick around until Tuesday, the final day of Carnevale. The traditional fritole veneziane are small sugar-coated doughnuts, studded with sultanas and pine nuts and best served warm with an afternoon espresso. When they’re fresh out of the oven, the dough seems almost custard-like; light, moist, and fragrant with rum. They’re also slightly more modest in size than the bombe of my au pairing youth – just small enough to justify eating one with every espresso pitstop. And indeed, I’ve done just that. In Read More

I come to you this evening with possibly the simplest fish recipe in the world. In fact, it’s barely a recipe – more a gentle reminder of something we all know: that lemon, parsley and fresh fish are three things that almost always come together to create something wonderful. And I’m talking about really fresh fish here. This branzino came from the Rialto Fish Market, bought and eaten on the same day. Before I tell you about the bass, let me talk a little about the market. It was early December when I bought these two fish, and so cold that even the seafood seemed to chatter in their shells. Yet the market was bustling at 10am on a Tuesday, and the fruit and vegetable stands overflowing. The Italians, it seems, are experts at drawing out colour in the depths of winter; their stalls full of glossy persimmons, orange fleshed pumpkins, flaming bunches of peperoncini, and radicchio di Treviso, its ruby tipped tendrils flailing over the counters. I stopped at my favourite vegetable stand and bought potatoes, zucchini and a handful of parsley. They asked Read More

Sarde in Saor is a hard dish to sell. Made, as it is, of marinated sardines, vinegar, onions and sultanas – all served cold alongside polenta. If there was a marmite of the fish dish world, this would be it. It’s the type of food made for eating in a dark Venetian restaurant, mist rising from the canal, the sky a heavy grey. Its ingredients sweet, acidic, unapologetic; brought together out of necessity. But I love it. Sarde in saor first made its appearance when I worked as an au pair in Venice. The mother explained how it was cooked, emphasising the impossibly long cooking of the onions. And it really is long and slow – by the end you want onions that are soft and and slick with oil and vinegar, melting into the pan. In Venetian, ‘saor’ means ‘flavour’, but these vinegary onions do more than that. They also preserve the fish, making this the kind of dish that is cooked days in advance of eating: perfect if you find yourself with a Read More